Creating Maps with Google Maps

Kenny

Posted 08 July 2011 - 07:00 AM

Kenny

Newbie

New Member

1 posts

No Country Selected

Does anyone has experience with printing out maps from Google Maps? I am trying to add specific icons representing various points of interests on a map. Is there an easy way I can do this on Google Maps and then print it out? Otherwise, do I have to export the map out as a graphic and then to add the icons from there?

Igor Brejc

Posted 09 July 2011 - 01:35 PM

Igor Brejc

Contributor

Validated Member

33 posts

Location:Maribor

Slovenia

I doubt you'll be able to do anything other than exporting the map as bitmap graphics with Google Maps. That means you'll end up with a very poor resolution (cca. 90 DPI) which will look ugly when printed. Depending on what you intend to do with the printed map, you should also read Google Maps' terms of use.

My suggestion: use OpenStreetMap data instead. You get OSM vector data and load it in software like Maperitive which actually has an imitation of Google Maps style and then either export it into a bitmap with a custom DPI or into SVG, which you can then load into Inkscape or Illustrator.

You can even add your own POIs before exporting, but that requires a little bit of learning of OSM and Maperitive.

woneil

Posted 12 July 2011 - 11:55 PM

woneil

Will O'Neil

Validated Member

129 posts

Gender:Male

Location:Falls Church, Virginia

United States

It's not the proudest accomplishment of even my very limited cartography, but in the past there were occasions when have done this. The only way I could find was to blow the map up on screen, use somethng like Hypersnap to capture screen images, and stitch them together in Photoshop before editing the image. Not really recommended.

Does anyone has experience with printing out maps from Google Maps? I am trying to add specific icons representing various points of interests on a map. Is there an easy way I can do this on Google Maps and then print it out? Otherwise, do I have to export the map out as a graphic and then to add the icons from there?